


mutual agreement

by fishycorvid



Series: but we'll wait for the sun to rise [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Pining, Tension, The Bet, angsty, but also not really, open-ended, set during 1x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:16:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishycorvid/pseuds/fishycorvid
Summary: it’s when they’re sitting there on the sidewalk, criminals handcuffed in the back of the squad car waiting for the relief team to come pick them up, that everything that they used to be shifts a little bit to the left.





	mutual agreement

**Author's Note:**

> this is actually based on a prompt— “deal”— that I thought deserved its own separate work from my prompt collection. enjoy!!

Jake turns down the relief team, because of course he does.

Admittedly, it surprises him when he says it– “plus, I’m curious to see what happens”– because it’s only as he’s speaking that he realizes the actual, genuine truth of the statement. He _does_ want to know. He watches Amy from the other side of the roof, leaned up against the railing, just watching. She’s laughing self-consciously to herself as she tries to catch nuts in her mouth with very limited success, and before he realizes it he’s smiling softly at her.

Jake shakes his head and wanders back over to her. They catch the bad guys, throw them in the squad car, and wait for the night shift to pick them up.

“I feel a little bad for making them drive out here,” Amy admits, sitting on the sidewalk next to him in her (thankfully) normal, not-picked-by-Jake-Peralta jeans and jacket.

The other detective shrugs and kicks at the pavement. “It’s their job; they should’ve done it,” he grumbles.

Amy laughs a little bit and shakes her head. “Yeah. Sorry, by the way. I’m sure you lost a lot of money.”

Jake grins and shoves a hand through his messy hair. “Oh, I one hundred percent did. I hired a children’s choir to serenade us, I paid for professional portraits, I even rented a tiger cub by the hour. I didn’t even have a plan, I just wanted to see if inspiration struck.”

She chuckles, low and quiet, and leans against his shoulder for a second as they watch the street. “God, you’re such an idiot, Peralta.”

“Sure, but you know you love it,” Jake laughs, and glances at her out of the corner of his eye. She looks tired but happy, he realizes, sitting under pale white streetlights in the middle of Brooklyn at almost midnight. Amy shoots him one of her patented Exasperated Santiago Looks after his last statement, but he can see the poorly-disguised amusement in her eyes.

“Keep dreaming, Jake.”

He shakes his head and looks down at his feet, and he realizes that he’s still smiling. He’s been smiling all night, enough to make his cheeks hurt. 

They sit there in a comfortable kind of silence, listening to the distant honking of cars, the chattering of people leaving a bar nearby, the rumble of late-night traffic a few blocks away. For once, it doesn’t feel like they’re waiting for something.

Jake watches Amy, quiet and contained. Her eyes are fixed on something across the street: a crow, hopping across the ground, pecking at the pavement for scraps of food. But his eyes are on her, and he thinks about what Charles said, and he thinks about how things have been subtly but definitively _different_ these days, in ways that he can’t really explain except that he’s been trying harder to make her laugh, to make her notice him; he’s been making fun of her dates almost with a vengeance, noticing more about where she’s going and what she’s wearing and why; he’s seeing tiny things like the flicker of a triumphant smile across her lips when she finishes her paperwork or the tuck of her hair behind her ears or the shine in her dark eyes when she looks at him, when she thinks he isn’t looking back.

And then he’s speaking without thinking: “Is it weird that this actually goes on the good date list for me?”

Amy turns and fixes him with a skeptical but amused smile. “Is it weird that maybe it does for me too?”

“Even though you lost a bet and that’s the only reason you’re here?” Jake hedges, and he’s not sure what he really wants to achieve by needling at her more.

She shrugs, but still meets his eyes with an intensity he hadn’t really bargained for. “It was still…” Amy worries her lower lip with her teeth, and her eyes take on that distant, thoughtful look that feels almost achingly familiar to him. “Good,” she decides on. “It was good.” A rare, small, genuine smile.

Jake doesn’t know who moves first, but the irrefutable fact is that he knows now that Amy’s lips are soft and a little chapped, and they’re pressed lightly against his as a single hand comes up to touch his cheek with hesitant fingers brushing his skin. He inhales sharply at her touch and brings up a hand to curl into the lapel of her jacket. The kiss is long and slow and languid and gives both of them plenty of time to breathe, but the streetlights are glowing down on them and a crow is flying away across the street and Jake doesn’t think he could breathe even if he wanted to, like maybe the movement of his lungs would scare the moment away into memory.

When they pull back, they don’t go far, just linger nose to nose, eyes half-closed (they don’t want to blink, don’t want to breathe too hard, don’t want to change anything at all). Slowly, Amy lets her hand drift from his cheek back down to rest in her lap.

“Fuck,” she whispers, maybe just to break the silence. At a different time, Jake might have teased her, called her unprofessional on the job, mirthfully threatened to tell Holt, but he’s still looking at her with this expression of wonder and shock. He thinks, with some vague annoyance, _Charles was right._

Jake says, “Okay, so what’s next?” at the same time Amy says, “Can we please just mutually agree to forget this happened?” and since they’re both incredibly flustered and Jake is trying his best not to look at Amy’s lips, he shrugs and nods very quickly, shoving his hands into his pockets and trying to focus on the sting of the cold winter air on his face.

Hesitantly, Amy extends a hand towards him, and he pretends to ignore her trembling fingers and the sinking feeling in his gut. “Shake on it?” she asks, throwing him a cautious, embarrassed grin.

Jake laughs and scrounges for any of their familiar, comfortable rapport. He can’t find it.

He takes her hand and gives it a resolute shake. “Deal.”

The relief team comes, and Jake drives her home. He doesn’t meet her eyes as she climbs out of the car.

“Detective Peralta,” she says, nodding curtly to him.

“Detective Santiago,” he replies, echoing her tone, and closes the door behind her. Jake drives home slow that night, takes the long route through the crowded city, and watches the lights flash by. He knows he won’t sleep that night.

But mostly, he just knows he won’t forget.

At the stoplight a block from his house, Jake touches two fingers to his lips and closes his eyes, cataloging it. In case he doesn’t get another chance to feel her lips on his again.

**Author's Note:**

> do events progress normally as they do in the series after this like this is just a missing scene? or do they never truly find their rhythm again, pining and dancing around the subject and never quite connecting right, and then it’s five years later and instead of exchanging rings and vows outside the precinct they’re in the exact same place as when they started? who Knows! it’s up to you! 
> 
> either way I really hoped you liked this, pls drop a comment or a kudos if you feel like it!


End file.
